Her pulse jumped beneath the shadow's grip. He felt it like it was his own heartbeat, racing and ragged. Her breath came faster, chest rising and falling in a rhythm that made him want to step closer still, to press her against the wall and chase whatever she was hiding until she gave it up.
For one endless moment, they stood there. His shadow on her wrist. The space between them was charged with everything they weren't saying.
Her mouth opened. Her eyes softened.
She was going to tell him.
He could see it: the wall cracking, the words rising in her throat. Whatever Seraphina had said, whatever poison had been planted, she was going to let him in. Let him defend himself. Let him?—
Her gaze dropped to the shadow wrapped around her wrist.
And the wall slammed back into place so fast he almost felt the impact.
She yanked her arm free. His shadow recoiled, wounded, and the loss of her pulse beneath his touch felt like amputation.
"Goodnight, Reaper."
The title landed like a blade between his ribs. Twisted. Buried to the hilt.
She barely used it anymore. Only when she was angry. When she wanted distance. When she wanted to remind them both what he really was.
She turned and walked away. Every line of her body rigid. Every step carrying her further from him.
He didn't follow.
His shadows writhed at his feet with something that felt like grief and want and rage all tangled together. The phantom sensation of her pulse still throbbed against the tendril that had touched her.
The click of her door closing echoed off the stone walls.
He stared at the empty corridor long after the sound faded. The tightness in his chest didn't ease. It deepened.
Dante triedto focus on reports from the other courts, analyzing patterns that might reveal the saboteur's identity.
His shadows crept toward the door without permission, straining in the direction of her chambers. He called them back. They went reluctantly, and he felt their displeasure like an ache behind his ribs.
Or perhaps that was his own.
Near midnight, he gave up pretending to focus. The maps and documents from their investigation lay scattered across his desk, marked with notes in his handwriting and her more casual script.
Their partnership, visible in ink and parchment.
He stared at a notation she'd made about ward harmonics, remembering the way she'd leaned over the desk to write it. Close enough that he caught the scent that haunted him now. Close enough that his shadows had curled toward her without permission and she'd swatted them away with a distracted hand, like they were nothing more than overeager pets.
She'd smiled when she did it. A small, private thing meant just for him.
He could go to her. Demand answers. Use the authority that came with his position to force the truth from her lips.
The thought made his stomach turn.
He couldn't stay here.
His sanctuary waited through the private entrance of his chambers.
The midnight garden was the one place in his domain where nothing recoiled from him. He'd found the black roses long ago—awild tangle in a forgotten corner, its blooms so saturated with death magic that it thrived under his touch when everything else withered.
He'd built the garden around that single miracle.
Now they climbed the stone walls, blooming in reverse, from withered darkness into velvet softness. Death to life, over and over. Deep moss cushioned his steps. Night-blooming jasmine scented the air. At the center, a fountain of black stone, its water flowing soft and quiet.
